Made It Home

“And if there’s tasks for me, darling let it be known.” —Bon Iver, “89”

I had a feeling about the two hives at the west end of my apiary. Lark was a nucleus colony, a mini hive, that I had nursed through the previous season after splitting a larger hive. Many dead sisters had been pushed from the landing board, first onto the dried-up fall grass and more recently into the late winter snow, until there were really no more bees left to fall. Maybe I wrapped the hive in too many layers of tar paper for her winter coat. Maybe they struggled to keep warm and dry through the erratic Northern Illinois weather. Maybe I will never know why they had to die.

Jules was a larger colony, another split from last spring. At my final inspection of the season, I spotted the illustrious Queen Jules at the edge of one of the frames, which promptly slipped from my hands and fell back into the hive. I never again saw the queen. It had been too late in the season to offer resources from another hive in hopes that they would make a new queen. It had been too late to order a new one (yes, that is a thing) from the supplier. I could only hope that Queen Jules was merely elusive, until I opened the hive to learn that this colony, too, was lost.

My dad always wanted me to call to let him know that I had safely returned to my college apartment after my weekends and breaks spent at home. Though he didn’t really worry about me (or admit to it) while I was at school, it was the bridge between home and the next stop that held the uncertain.

Through the years, I had often asked the same of my older sons when they left home for whatever destination. One boy drove four days one way to California. His messages were tonics as I kept vigil. Though I hadn’t asked, this past weekend, my phone lit up with another grown son’s message after his weekend visit: “made it back.” They still know.

As I sat yesterday in a cold room near the MRI machine at the hospital, I was twenty years younger, bewildered and frightened, wondering what the loud clicks and whizzing sounds might reveal about my son’s brain. On this day, this child, also a ten-year-old fourth grade boy, had scans for a very different reason. Somehow, years ago turned to yesterday. Somehow, that little boy made it back.

It was Evelyn that surprised me. The spicier of my two original colonies, she was the one to show me my place as a new beekeeper. In an episode of 200 stings that first season, Evelyn taught me to slow down and to let the bees show me the way. I never harvested much honey from her hive; just a few frames the last few years. She remained strong, though not as fierce, through requeening. Maybe it was me that softened her as we learned to work together. I didn’t expect to lose her. I should have. Colony loss is expected in beekeeping just as in the wild, but I will miss her.

We learned today that our boys’ birth mother passed away. They hadn’t known her since very early infancy, but I know that she has been with them all along.

Some say bees represent the souls of those who have left us, as some sort of liaison between this life and the afterworld. I wonder what messages they are here to share. I wonder what messages we are here to share.

I had known her, the boys’ birth mother, for a brief period while I was at college. With so much gratitude, I remember the little girl who licked the spoon when we made chocolate chip cookies so many, many years before. Now, she has made it back. She has made it home.

I get complacent sometimes. Then, like the forager bee that unexpectedly lights on my hand, I am blindsided by something that stirs my thoughts or makes my heart hurt showing me once again the passage of time, the circling back, and the wonder of childhood fading to somewhere unknown.

We still have some weeks of winter weather to go with nearly half of our colonies already lost. When the dandelions bloom, I’ll hope to split some of my hives that came through to the new season. The ones that did not, I know, have other tasks to do. XO